SMART COMBAT AND IMPRESSIVE BOSSES.

Nioh owes a lot to Dark Souls. You hear that phrase a lot these days, but in this case, it's more accurate than usual — from its demanding but rewarding combat to its labyrinthine levels full of thrilling danger and secrets, the influence of FromSoftware’s action RPG series undeniably forms the foundation for Team Ninja’s latest endeavor.

But Nioh also boldly carves out its own space in the genre, asserting its unique identity with a gracefully layered combat system that allows for just enough customization to determine your own style while still adhering to the interesting constraints of its stamina-based framework. A welcoming variety of foes to face, clever bosses to take down, problems to solve, and secrets to find makes every step in Nioh’s long journey consistently fresh and surprising.

Nioh’s story functions mostly as interesting flavor for your adventure. You play a fictionalized version of real-life sailor William Adams, who becomes an almost comically inexplicable demon-slaying action hero in the Sengoku period of Japan. William is sadly underdeveloped, but his adventure through the foggy mountainsides, war-ravaged villages, and hellish battlefields of 1600s Japan is captivating thanks to appearances from other famous historical figures like the mysterious Hattori Hanzo and the fierce Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Nioh has the ability to shift seamlessly from lighthearted to epic to terrifying.

While I never felt invested in William’s personal story, I fell in love with Nioh’s colorful cast of characters and the epic scope of their collective journey, which sets an awesome tone for more than 70 hours of adventure: a quirky mix of history and fantasy that brings an unexpected lightheartedness to what initially seemed like an overly straightfaced action game. I especially appreciate its ability to shift tones so seamlessly. Nioh’s intentionally silly side never gets in the way of its truly epic and terrifying moments, which are in abundant supply — particularly in the final quarter, as it hurtles full-speed towards its thrilling conclusion.

With effectively two tutorials and myriad systems, menus, and enough skills and item shortcuts that you need to hold down R1 to access them all through the controller’s face buttons, you’d think Nioh would seem overwhelming at the start, but the way its opening acclimates you to each mechanic is a thing of beauty. The Tower of London, where we first see our almost comically unremarkable hero, William, breaking free from prison, teaches you the very basics of combat and movement, while the standalone and conveniently skippable Dojo tutorial runs down the more complex stuff involving stances and managing your Ki meter.

Tons of handy optional training missions provide a deeper understanding of Nioh’s many systems, including melee combat, ninjutsu, and onmyo magic. While it’s easy to get the hang of these on your own, doing the missions provides some nice skill bonuses that make taking the time to run through each one worth it.

All missions – including main missions, the many exciting side-missions, and training missions – are accessible in an overworld screen that pops up after you’ve completed a level. That gives you much-needed time to breathe, upgrade weapons at the blacksmith, and buy items. While I was initially worried that the disjointed approach to progression would deny a sense of movement through the world, the striking variety of environments more than makes up for it. Each self-contained area is a visually distinct, intricately laid-out space that’s dense with meaningful combat encounters.

Interesting levels make exploration a fun and important part of the journey.

Even the most generic levels, from a cliffside cave network overrun with crafty bandits to the many war-torn villages of the countryside, have some interesting spin that distinguishes them from the last. But the more unique levels are unforgettable — like a deadly, trap-filled ninja mansion and a sprawling, bloody battlefield crawling with demons. Checkpoint shrines respawn enemies each time you visit one (think bonfires in Dark Souls), but the winding pathways, looping shortcuts, and hidden secrets of each level make exploration a fun and important part of the journey in both main and optional side missions.

Nioh's charm is a nice surprise.

One of my favorite things to hunt down in each level are the adorable kodama tree spirits. You can guide them back to your shrine for some useful perks, making them more than just cute collectibles. They’ll sit atop your shrine, dancing and whistling a tune with little cracked bowls on their heads. It’s a silly bit of respite after an exhausting run from checkpoint to checkpoint. I didn’t expect Nioh to be charming, but its nonsensical brand of comedy in the face of overwhelming odds and terrifying enemies was a nice surprise that carries into the gameplay as much as its entertaining cutscenes.

Channeling Your Ki

Nioh’s combat combines the slow-paced and position-based nuance of Dark Souls and the calculated, combo-executing thrill of a fighting game to create some of the freshest and deepest melee action I’ve experienced in recent memory. I’d put it right up there alongside Dark Souls and Bloodborne — what it lacks in the purity that makes those games so strong, it makes up for with an even more demanding tactics-based approach that allows it to stand boldly on its own. That’s owed entirely to its Ki system and the compelling dynamic it produces with its weapon options and stance-based fighting styles.

Ki makes every combat encounter a tense game of careful calculation.

In the world of Nioh, Ki is your attack force — effectively a stamina bar that drains when attacking, dodging, blocking, and taking damage. What makes it unique is your ability to execute a timing-based move called a Ki pulse to regenerate stamina mid-fight, reminiscent of Bloodborne’s rally system for health, but much more urgent. The more perfectly timed the pulse, the more Ki you have the opportunity to gain back. Executing a perfect pulse has other advantages, too — just one of the many ways individual mechanics in Nioh play off of multiple others in strategic harmony. Certain yokai (demons) can create what’s called a Yokai Realm, which is an area-of-effect spell that significantly slows your Ki regeneration and adds an extra challenge to fights. The only way to regain Ki in a Yokai Realm is to do a Ki pulse, and if you can pull off a perfect one inside the realm, it will disappear.

The ability to manually regenerate stamina sounds like it might be ripe for exploits that would have you fighting without rest, but because of how fast your Ki can drain when up against formidable foes, regeneration is a vital responsibility that makes every combat encounter a tense game of careful calculation. Because you can get stunlocked when an enemy’s attack drains your Ki, this system also punishes you for being greedy with your attacks and forces a much more strategic approach that is even more fleshed out thanks to Nioh’s clever multi-stance system.

Interesting enemies make for an abundance of compelling combat encounters.

Instead of individual weapon types being the sole dictator of style and agility, there are three combat stances you can take no matter what you choose to wield. These stances are easy to access and switch between mid-fight, which is good because learning when and where to implement them is key to mastering Nioh. The high stance lets you pull off stronger attacks that deal more damage, but are slower and cost more Ki. Mid stance is great for handling groups of enemies and playing evasively thanks to its wider sweeping attacks. Low stance attacks are the quickest, deal the least damage, but also cost the least Ki, making them ideal for punishing enemy attacks or quickly shaving off the last of a tough enemy’s HP. The subtle complexities of each stance, the way they work in tandem with Ki, and even their interactions with the types of weapons you decide to use reveal themselves as you play. That has made my time with Nioh a constant learning experience, ripe with opportunities to hone my skills and perfect newly discovered techniques.

You can also use skill points earned by fighting to unlock useful stance-specific special abilities for each weapon type to personalize your fighting style even more. The subtle complexities of each stance, the way they work in tandem with Ki, and even their interactions with the types of weapons you decide to use reveal themselves as you play. That has made my time with Nioh a constant learning experience, ripe with opportunities to hone my skills and perfect newly discovered techniques.

Rechargeable Living Weapons are a nice reward for your efforts.

And if all my well-timed, carefully paced efforts still can't take a particularly tough enemy down, I can occasionally rely on my Guardian Spirit to take over, granting me the power of a Living Weapon and allowing me to perform strong special attacks during a brief period of invulnerability. It sounds overpowered, but because it takes time for the ability to build up power, employing my Guardian Spirit felt more like a special reward for my accomplishments than a crutch — a rare opportunity to go wild after toiling through a rough patch.

Here Be Yokai

A good combat system wouldn’t be much without interesting enemies to face, but Nioh has plenty. Thanks to intricately designed levels that are dense with everything from quick but frail zombies and skeletons to hulking yokai that can crush you in a single move, I never felt a shortage of situations in which to put my skills to the test. I’ve executed my share of sneak attacks on unsuspecting bandits, sniped patrolling soldiers with a rifle or a bow, done battle with a cyclops in a muddy cave, fled from giant spiders across the rooftops of a wrecked village, and been ambushed by sea-dwelling demons; suffice it to say, the fatigue of repetition has yet to set in.

Bosses impress with their designs, challenge, and inventive use of arenas.

Another mechanic that borrows heavily from Dark Souls is in its Revenant system, Nioh’s take on bloodstains, which lets you summon and fight (rather than just view) NPC versions of fallen players at gravestones scattered throughout every level at the place they died in their own games. It’s an extra and constantly changing layer of activity that ties neatly into the lore. But even if you ignore the Revenants, well-placed enemies that respawn every time you save at a shrine keep Nioh’s moment-to-moment gameplay exciting, especially mixed in with quality-of-life elements like the little Spider-sense-like sound that plays when you aggro a hostile, giving you a fair warning of the danger to come without reducing the danger itself.

Bosses have been especially impressive, ranging from ultra-challenging face-offs with swift-moving humanoids to slow-paced brawls against lumbering demons. Some fights are significantly tougher than others, but even the ones that go by quickly are memorable for their design, like a shrieking, lightning-encased chimera or a towering gelatinous sea creature that spits up the remains of shipwrecks at you, for example. Some even make inventive use of the boss arena, like a horrifying skull-faced centipede that chases you up and down the creaky walkways of a poisoned silver mine.

Some even make inventive use of the boss arena, like a horrifying, skull-faced centipede that chases you up and down the creaky walkways of a poisoned silver mine, or the extremely chaotic last boss, which I won’t spoil. Many of the bosses have roots in Japanese mythology and history that make them especially compelling. My battle against a colorfully robed, sobbing Ogress was as haunting as it was frantic, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Yasuke, a black samurai who fought under Oda Nobunaga, make an appearance.

The bosses of Nioh's strong final half are especially intense.

Be aware that while it’s fun and easy to summon friends into online multiplayer to help you through difficult sections, co-op can make even the toughest boss a little too easy. Luckily, Nioh’s answer to that are its Twilight missions: ultra-challenging, replayable versions of missions you’ve already completed. While there were only two tough bosses I fought with a co-op partner, I found going up against them alone the most satisfying — especially as Nioh relentlessly ramps up the difficulty of missions and the scope of its baddies in its epic final half.

The Verdict

Nioh could well take over 100 hours if you set out to master its many side missions on top of its tough campaign, but it’s a challenge well worth taking. The way it builds on its most obvious inspirations with a highly refined combat system and an unexpectedly charming, yet gritty style all its own allows it to boldly carve out its own identity, standing as a shining example of what action RPGs can be.